/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.8146858]

Old games look a lot different with clear pixels on newer LCD screens, especially if it's high definition (but low poly) 3D. You can see all the imperfections of the textures and polygon seams. You can tell the backgrounds are flat. Even with 2D games you weren't supposed to be able to see the pixels, so the retro-pixel aesthetic is very much a 21st century one. Discuss.

[Anonymous No.8146872]

someone had to draw the sprites, and they had to think about individual pixels and not blurry crt blobs (for pixelart games at least)
whether they would also think about how the screen artifacts affect the output cannot be known
mario world and sonic 1 used this for water transparency

[Anonymous No.8146873]

>>8146858

[Anonymous No.8146885]

>>8146858
I agree there was a very specialized craft in predicting and making use of how the visual information was output by the hardware of the era, but the "nobody knew pixels" stance on the matter is the real 21st century byproduct here. People just need extreme black and white moral certainty about everything now, including pointless shit like this.

[Anonymous No.8146914]

>>8146872

>cannot be known

there are absolutely situations where the obscuring of the artwork was accounted for. there are entire games made from the ground up visually to take this factor into account. stop talking out of your ass. really irritating when someone who doesn't know shit says that something that is an established historical fact "cannot be known". lurk.

[Anonymous No.8146917]

>>8146858
Don't care, still emulating games raw and without filters.

[Anonymous No.8146918]

>>8146885
>>8146873
CRT Autists:
[ ] Not Wrecked
[X] Wrecked

[Anonymous No.8146923]

I don't know, you pick

[Anonymous No.8146926]

>>8146923

[Anonymous No.8146928]

>>8146872
We know Leonardo DaVinci implemented the shifting quality of the Mona Lisa's expression through an accurate understanding of how human perception shifts shape and value clustering depending on the areas of direct and peripherical focus. We KNOW this and it happened 5 centuries instead of 3 decades ago.

[Anonymous No.8146936]

>>8146914
you are one dumb fuck nigger, huh? have you considered that the "cannot" refers to the "indie/true retro" dichotomy of op post image? huh? did everybody create graphics taking the artifacts into consideration? no, no the did not you subhuman beast. did nobody do so? no, no again you angry spaz. some artists did, some did not. you cannot know who did and who didnt unless you uh... ask them yourself. everything else is is tranny cope. my post was refuting the notion that jaded faggot nigger cucks have about how retro games are not pixely because the screens produce a blurry output. muh shaders. only idiotic shit eaters think a game is defined by its hardware. well, mr gorilla idiot, i am blind. that means that real nes graphics are all black... faggot? i think so. go back your centrist hugbox and eat a dick.

[Anonymous No.8146949]

Which, if any, Retroarch shaders are designed for improving upscaled video (e.g. native multiplied by 3/4/5/etc)? I don't want the tiny original resolution on my physically big modern screen.

[Anonymous No.8146957]

>>8146928
The Mona Lisa is a masterpiece of traditional painting made by an expert, while a 16x32 sprite of Link from Zelda II was just a fucking sprite drawn by a literraly who for a forgotten video game. What is your point? There is more historical knowledge of Hitler's life than there is of your own... except by your own logic that is impossible because that was a 100 years ago compared to 0 years ago that was before this very moment? What gives? I know: some things are not worth recording. Nobody gives a damn about how someone scribbled the textures of some commerical flop for the PS1.

[Anonymous No.8147016]

Sprite design has been documented, though.
https://desuarchive.org/vr/thread/5163337/

[Anonymous No.8147029]

The artists' intentions are irrelevant to how players actually experienced those games, which would be through the effects of a CRT. Player's judgements and purchase choices would be based on that end result. So whether the artist designed around CRT or not is irrelevant, since ultimately that is how their work would be evaluated either way. Maybe they didn't consider CRT display but nonetheless their art looked great on it, or vice versa. The result is that you have decades worth of mostly unconscious selection towards what worked well on those end user displays, even if you take the ridiculous assumption that business-savvy developers somehow neglected having their artists anticipate the way their art would be displayed for the consumer.

[Anonymous No.8147030]

I don’t know why anyone would want to filter beautiful spritework with scanlines.

[Anonymous No.8147049]

>>8146858
>you weren't supposed to be able to see the pixels

This is not true as a blanket statement. You could absolutely see chunky pixels on computer games. And, in fact, when playing NES/SNES games on retro emulators.

[Anonymous No.8147058]

>>8146957
>This isn't important therefore I dont need knowledge or arguments to discuss it
>I have no knowledge or arguments to discuss it therefore it's not important
To be fair, whichever you're operating is kind of equally embarrassing

[Anonymous No.8147062]

>>8147016
Not a good argument because Pac-Man was designed to be played on a RGB arcade monitor.

[Anonymous No.8147073]

>>8147030
Healthy people prefer art that feels alive rather than dead.

[Anonymous No.8147076]

>>8147030
>>8147073

[Anonymous No.8147079]

>>8147030
It is more true to the retro era, when people put window blinders over their tvs to get the experience the developers intended.

[Anonymous No.8147126]

>it's an americope composhit episode

[Anonymous No.8147137]

>>8147058
Just admit that you have the reading comprehension of a retard and apologize for your rancid """argument""".

[Anonymous No.8147146]

>>8146873
CRTbros...

[Anonymous No.8147154]

>>8147146
sup

[Anonymous No.8147168]

Reminder that CRT filters are a meme. All you need for that retro look is a shader emulating your choice of shitty analog signal. Of course this can always be combined with a CRT one.

[Anonymous No.8147191]

>>8146858
What a retro game looked like on the developer's computer monitor as he was designing it:

[Anonymous No.8147194]

>>8146858
If you couldn't see the imperfections in early 3D on your CRT, it was probably because you were 5 years old and using imagination-o-vision.

[Anonymous No.8147198]

>>8147191
you do know that monitors were CRT's back then right?
you also do know that famicom was exclusively RF right?

[Anonymous No.8147204]

>>8146923
>>8146926
I'll take the one that isn't fuzzy, blurry, and dark, please.

[Anonymous No.8147216]

>>8147198
>you do know that monitors were CRT's back then right?
Very different way of displaying graphics. Monitors were not merely TVs hooked up to a computer.

>you also do know that famicom was exclusively RF right?
Do you know that monitors don't use RF?

[Anonymous No.8147221]

>>8147076
What you gain in "shading," you lose tenfold in all that static over the image.

[Anonymous No.8147226]

>>8147216
uh huh

[Anonymous No.8147228]

>>8147076
Both are shit. Clearly graphics designed to be raw pixels, like mario, hold up better.

[Anonymous No.8147251]

>>8147076

[Anonymous No.8147265]

>>8147226
>setting floppy disks on top of a CRT monitor
What are you doing, you fool?

[Anonymous No.8147267]

>>8147265
>What are you doing, you fool?
making the greatest mario game ever

[Anonymous No.8147294]

>>8147137
Delet this. The use of extra quotations is literally devastating

[Anonymous No.8147302]

>>8147146
The doxmatrixchads won

[Anonymous No.8147316]

>>8146885
Not just Mario btw.

[Anonymous No.8147324]

>>8146885
>>8147316
I love this shit. In most you can even see little wonky imperfection and edges catching light from the paper layering and things like that. Makes the overall effect subtly more alive and interesting

[Anonymous No.8147331]

>>8147316
sure, now look at the back of the boxes

[Anonymous No.8147332]

>>8146858
Don't care, still playing snes on my childhood snes + 20 inch crt.

[Anonymous No.8147350]

In today's age of "everything is a social construct," it's controversial that CRTs and LCDs are different and that only CRTs were used in the past.

[Anonymous No.8147353]

>>8147198
>nintendo is the only videogame company in the world

[Anonymous No.8147365]

>>8147251
Thank you. When you don't blow up sprites to 500x their original resolution, they look better.

Retro gaming protip: sit farther back.

[Anonymous No.8147373]

>>8147332
Based

[Anonymous No.8147426]

>>8147332
>still playing snes on my childhood snes
I prefer playing SNES on my Genesis, but to each their own.

[Anonymous No.8147436]

>>8147226
There are plenty of interviews where devs talk about the differences between their monitors and TV output.

[Anonymous No.8147469]

>>8147191
you would have thought he sometimes would look at an unscaled view to see how it would end up looking in the final game

[Anonymous No.8147471]

>>8146928
>We know Leonardo DaVinci implemented

[Anonymous No.8147504]

>>8146885
>the "nobody knew pixels" stance on the matter is the real 21st century byproduct here.
this
Do you guys not remember the easter eggs in Paper Mario and Super Mario RPG where you could temporarily turn into an 8-bit Mario sprite?

[Anonymous No.8147512]

>>8147073
>insult thinly disguised as a claim
>nonsensical use of descriptors (how does unfiltered = dead?)
retarded post

[Anonymous No.8147570]

>>8146872
can't be known? Shit, if only we knew what kind of monitors these developers were working on. Could it have been CRTs? Sure seems possible, but I guess it can’t be known.

[Anonymous No.8147583]

>>8146957
>forgotten video game
>drawn by a literally who
Probably Kazunobu Shimizu, who also was responsible for F-Zero as director and graphics designer.
He also made 6 other games between Zelda II(his first title) and F-Zero, but outside of Super Mario USA(he worked specficially on YK:DDP,) none of the games reached the international market.

[Anonymous No.8147590]

>>8147570
I hate to bring this up, but he specified pixelart games, not retro games.

[Anonymous No.8147597]

>>8147512
It's helpful to distinguish the main 2 tastes. People who like alive stuff like new games or classic games displayed in classic style. Or people who like indie games (new DoA games) or classic games displayed with a raw pixels style. Overlaps with the players respective vigour too.

[Anonymous No.8147598]

>>8147228
Which Mario? Mario 1 looks like fuckin' shit. Mario 2 and 3 are fine though.

[Anonymous No.8147607]

>U NO FAMOUS ACCORDING TO MY AMERICA MEDIA!? THEN YOU NO MATTER! YOUR LIFE NO MATTER! YOU NO DAVINCI OR MOZART OR OTHER APPROVED CONTENT CREATOR WHO MAKE PRODUCT TO SHAPE SOCIETY SO YOU NO MATTER! OH, YOU PART OF MAKING ONE OF MOST FAMOUS GAMES EVER!? SO WHAT!? DID TEACHER SAY YOU IMPORTANT!? NO? SO SIT DOWN!
Human botnet logic. Point out their stupidity.

[Anonymous No.8147615]

>>8146885
Based post

[Anonymous No.8147647]

OP here. I don't use scanline filters; I think they're kind of ugly. There are decent NTSC shaders that can approximate CRT visuals but it's still not exactly the same. The bigger issue, I think, is just that seeing low-res graphics magnified on a clear, high-res screen (especially if the magnification isn't a multiple of the original resolution) is a different experience from seeing them on a CRT, so zoomers get the idea that graphics back then looked like emulators do, and they really didn't.

>>8146873
Those old LCD portable screens are very low-res but the graphics look clear on them because there's no scaling, the screen is small, and you're not pressing your face against it. It doesn't look like a bunch of squares; it looks like a clear picture. I actually miss this.

Also, the drama in this thread is funny.

[Anonymous No.8147748]

>>8147221
the static adds soul

[Anonymous No.8148001]

>>8146858
These games were all designed on computers with RGB monitors that would have had very sharp pixel accuracy. Some games took advantage of the limitations of composite and RF but it was a tradeoff. I can guarantee you that the developers spent a lot more time looking at sharp pixel graphics than the blurry approximations that a lot of kids saw on their TVs.

[Anonymous No.8148007]

>>8148001
RF chads are right it think here. That looks amazing.
Can a ps2 use RF

[Anonymous No.8148014]

>>8146926
this isn't blurred enough actually; there's tons of visible dithering that was meant to be a "new colour"

[Anonymous No.8148061]

>>8148007
Composite is almost as shitty as RF so just use that.

[Anonymous No.8148082]

>>8148007
>>8148061
The only reason to use RF is if you want all of the radio frequency interference that comes with it, which most people would agree just looks bad and distracting. Composite is basically RF but without the interference.

My first "game system" was the Commodore 64 which had an early form factor of S-video, so I think that's why I've always preferred sharper looking graphics. I use RGB wherever possible, and when that's not available S-video is the next best thing.

[Anonymous No.8148113]

>>8146885
I like CRTs but I also recognize that they are extremely impractical today, and eventually we are all going to be stuck playing on LCDs so I've learned to love the sharp emulation-like look of playing through an upscaler. I just hope my original hardware and cartridges will still be around for future generations to enjoy.

[Anonymous No.8148406]

>>8146885
>>8146873
Based and pixelpilled posts.

>>8146936
I like your post too.

There's really not a single simple answer when it comes to clear pixels vs. CRT, there's a huge variety of factors. Whether or not the devs accounted for CRT displays and tried to exploit their effects for graphics, many did, many didn't, as well as the factor of different TVs and monitors, not all displays are equally made or equally set up. There's also the matter of console games vs. computer displays, or even arcade cabinet displays.

It varies on a case by case basis, and in my opinion is strongly subjective.

[Anonymous No.8148440]

I wish I could learn the craft of good pixel animation. Literally a dead art form. But so is traditional 2d animation too

[Anonymous No.8148464]

>>8148440
It might come back. We're seeing games with 16bit era quality again after nothing of the sort for like 15 years. It is possible we might see peak Y2K era 2d animation again some day.

[Anonymous No.8148956]

>>8147436
was there any contention to that on my side?
the other anon talks like they never used CRT's to see how it looks on a consumer set

[Anonymous No.8148963]

>>8147353
the image was literally Zelda 2

[Anonymous No.8149007]

[Anonymous No.8149046]

>>8149007
>ayo belmon whipcracka hol up

[Anonymous No.8149553]

>>8149007
this is a troll, innit

[Anonymous No.8149580]

>>8149007
wasn't funny the first ten times either

[Anonymous No.8149785]

>>8146858
Playing old games on new screens doesn't bother me. Maybe it's because I know what they used to look like.
>you weren't supposed to be able to see the pixels
It was impossible not to see them u tard

[Anonymous No.8149825]

>>8148001
This. Most everyone used RF and some used composite all on a cheap consumer crt. It never kept these games from being good. Now, autists sperg about pixels because they don't really play games anymore.

If you have turned a game off cause you didn't like the pixelated look, your in this hobby for other reasons.

[Anonymous No.8149852]

The argument of LCD vs CRT ultimately comes down to 1 thing. Blurriness. CRTs were blurry. Phosphors bloomed, pixels interfered with their neighbors, everything blended.

There's a reason nobody had even fucking heard of AA until LCDs started becoming a thing. Because until that point, "sharp" blocky polygons still looked fine because the screen itself was doing all the smearing for you.

[Anonymous No.8149856]

>>8149852
>CRTs were blurry
Yeah no

[Anonymous No.8149870]

>>8149785
This. I grew up playing NES-games, and now I play them only on emulator, no filter. I've never understood the "muh purity" thing. NES-games look like shit anyway, they weren't advanced even at the time (when I grew up in the early 90's at least, we had shit like the amiga)

[Anonymous No.8149931]

>>8149852
I always thought the thing w/ LCD vs CRT boiled-down to LCD not being as good at representing black so old games played on a lot of LCDs can look kind-of washed-out.

[Anonymous No.8149980]

>>8149856
this, RF and cope-a-shit are blurry

[Anonymous No.8150020]

>>8146957
>forgotten
It’s the best Zelda, you uneducated clod.

[Anonymous No.8150035]

>>8147353
The only one with games worth playing (NES)

[Anonymous No.8151131]

>>8146917
but do you play them with square pixels at only integer scale values?

[Anonymous No.8151563]

>>8148001
>RF - image is blurred, forms the shape of the subject
>PVM - sharper glow, lit up and adds more depth but is block
>emulated - (primitive scanlines) effect too deep and exaggerated but you see the original image
>Indie Developers - bears no resemblance to how the original appeared at all

[Anonymous No.8151856]

>>8146917
on a 15 inch screen they legit look great

[Anonymous No.8151858]

>>8146957

You're somewhat off on this. The Mona Lisa is an ugly picture of a fat person that is remembered in detail today by nobody - that is to say, there are numerous creatures that purport to know very much about it, but those creatures are not anybody. Actual people, in general, are capable of appreciating how much value Zelda II possesses that is lacked in, say, some bland piece of ancient feeder porn.

[Anonymous No.8151868]

>>8149007
I can see the teeth if I focus on his forehead

[Anonymous No.8151885]

>>8151858
what a bizarre stance. zelda 2 isn't even a particularly good video game, let alone a good piece of art. we can speculate on the difference between the literal display of the pixels and what the artist wants the player to see, but who gives a fuck? it's cave paintings of a guy with a sword. if you can interpret that, you can probably stop looking at link's sprite and start actually playing it (or a better game).

[Anonymous No.8152925]

>>8151868
mate...

[Anonymous No.8152976]

>>8148963
and? My point is that other companies cared more about video signal (at least a bit to give more than RF or composite)

[Anonymous No.8153368]

>>8146858
I know this post is ironic, but I've seen some games trying to emulate picture on the right with filters.
People are mad.

[Anonymous No.8153374]

>>8147191
You mean he had jpg compression artifacts?